


Ficlets & Drabble

by lavellanpls



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: 5 Sentence Fiction, Angst, Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Ficlet, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, Heartbreak, Humor, M/M, Post-Trespasser, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-04-12 11:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 32
Words: 12,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4478216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavellanpls/pseuds/lavellanpls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A building collection of Inquisition ficlets and drabble, feat. lots of different peeps. Individual summaries/pairings at the start of each chapter. Shoot me a prompt on <a href="http://lavellanpls.tumblr.com/">tumblr.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Contrition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | prompt: Love & Words

He called her his heart. His one love. But always in Elven, only ever in Elven—his words, his affections, were for her alone. _Ma emma lath; ma vhenan'ara._ Solas may have been grim and fatalistic and entirely hopeless, but he _loved her_. It was not often he said so in common tongue. When he did, it was...different.

Late at night, when she slept beside him, he whispered it into the back of her neck as if bowed in prayer. "I love you." Reverent. A whispered penance, too sacred to let slip freely. "I love you." A confession and a low, mournful apology. It ripped at his insides, twisted like a knife to the gut. "I love you." He was not allowed this; did not deserve this, and yet. Here he was, pressed against her in a bed he had no business in, mumbling professions of love as if he had any capacity to truly do so. He pulled her tighter to him, lips moving against her skin, an act of contrition. "I'm so sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry."

_Ar lath ma, ma vhenan. Ir abelas._

Lilith was different. She said it to him daily, on every occasion she could slip it in. She'd sneak up behind him when he was reading or painting or working; whisper it in his ear with a smile, lay a hand reassuringly over his shoulder and squeeze. "I love you." It was always said with such sureness; a sweet reminder, a happy fact. She always smiled. Like it lifted her up by just uttering it aloud. "I love you." She called it to him across rooms, let it echo off stone walls with no regard for listening ears. She paired it with every farewell; murmured it sleepily into his chest at night before falling asleep. "Hey. I love you, you know."

It killed him each time. She deserved so much better; _someone_ better. But he was foolish and weak and in love, and so he wrapped his arms around her sleeping form and tried not to think about how this was doomed to end. For now he could still hold her tight, and whisper fervent "I love you"s.


	2. Theoretic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | prompt: Sorrow & Abandoned

The way she looked at him changed after Redcliffe. After witnessing whatever dark future this “Elder One” had in store for them. Solas skimmed the official reports for the bare details, but delved no further. Whatever nightmarish future she’d witnessed, it would only come to pass if they failed—and he vowed determinedly not to fail. Something… _changed_ in Lavellan, though—shifted, just slightly, like a shadow moving beneath a door. At first nothing he could label, but a prickly, needling sense of _something_. She was still _Lilith,_ a warrior aflame, full of fire and fury, but something dark lurked behind each furtive glance his way, a ghostly shadow that flickered over her gaze, haunted. Sometimes he caught her staring at him when she thought he wasn’t looking, a chilling mix of sorrow and horror. She looked at him as if reading a headstone.

She spoke to him about it once. Pulled him quietly aside, alone, and asked to talk about Redcliffe. He tried to brush it off, assure her he knew enough, had little interest in his fate, but she stopped him short. “I sent you to die,” she reported, and the stark flatness of her tone ground his self-assurance to a halt. Lilith was fire and fury, and she did not sound like that. “They slaughtered them all, and I left you to them. Stood and waited for them to cut you down. And they did.”

“You erased a potential future,” he corrected, “and have kept us all alive thus far.”

“Erased,” she echoed, and it sounded hollow. “Yeah.” She studied her hands, focusing intently on the flexing of her fingers. “See, that’s the thing no one realizes about time. They think it goes forward and back, but it _splits_ -” She cut herself off with a sharp inhale, mouth tightening into a grim line. “How would you define reality?”

This path was dangerous. “I advise against dwelling in possible futures,” he warned. “There is no comfort to be found in theoretical explorations of pain.”

“But it’s not theoretical,” she informed. “History split, and was stitched back together. That doesn’t mean it never tore. There’s still a scar where it happened; you can _feel_ it…” Her fingers curled around a green-glowing palm, sparks arcing between her knuckles. “Did it feel any less real, you think, when they killed him?”

He had no answer for that.

“I don’t think I’ll be leaving again,” she said, but something about the tone of it struck him wrong.

He wondered, with a creeping sense of dread, what else she'd left behind in that abandoned future.


	3. Burn Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen | Lavellan | prompt: "Trouble Lurking" // "Danger Ahead"

She shouldn’t have been alone. Not now. Not tonight. Not when there was a very real possibility of facing death in the coming hours. Maker, it just wasn’t _right_. Whatever happened with Corypheus—success or failure—would change the world. Would change _her,_ for better or worse. She should not have had to face it alone. Yet that’s how Cullen found her: alone in the wind, staring out across a barren snowy backdrop with death in her eyes. Whose, he couldn’t say. He wasn’t sure she knew either.

She told him she was getting ready. “For death,” he asked, “or victory?”

She was still watching the horizon when she answered. Still facing down a careening apocalypse, alone. “Sometimes the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

And the tragedy was that she was right. Peace had a price. Always. He remembered as much from the Warden’s death. Would always remember. Wished he could forget, at times. Heart heavy, he offered the only comfort he still had left to give—he reached out and took her hand.

A simple gesture. But her fingers tightened around his, and past the howling wind, he heard her release a shaky exhale. “You know, all things considered, it could have gone worse. End of the world or not. And that’s…worth a lot, I think. Even if this doesn’t go my way tonight. At least I enjoyed the company.”

She looked up at him, and Cullen felt his heart plummet. He kissed her, for what was very possibly the first and last time.

When he’d pictured this in half-sleeping fantasies, it went differently—he was commanding, _aggressive_ ; pulled her to him with a firm hand at her waist and swept her off her feet into a kiss that left her gasping. In dreams she clung to him, held tight to his chest. Melted in his arms, and was _happy_.

In his dreams they weren’t at war.

Instead he pressed a gentle kiss softly to her lips—sweet and unhurried—and held her hand. Whatever troubles lay lurking on the horizon ahead, he could offer this brief reprieve. He could _care,_ however he could, with all he had left. Would do so forever, if she willed it—but then he was dreaming again.

It was over too fast, a warm fleeting moment like the last light of sunset, there and then gone. Around them, the wind picked up into a bitter flurry. The hour drew near.

“Wish me luck,” she said, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “And try not to regret that when I end up surviving.”

Cullen couldn’t imagine a world where he would ever regret that.


	4. Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | prompt: _"Would Lavellan have gone with Solas if they had the chance? Would they stop him? Support him?"_
> 
> ***Trespasser spoilers.

Lilith cannot follow. They both know this.

“You know I’ll find you, right?” she says, and while it holds the cadence of a joke, he hears only a stark and mournful confession. Lavellan is a hunter. Of many things. And when she finally does catch him, she’ll devour him alive. Solas wishes he knew with absolute certainty that he would stop her, but…

He finds himself certain of little anymore.

Lilith is fire and fury and  _justice,_  and they both know she’s far too deeply in love with this world to abandon it. She was ready to die for it with Corypheus, and would die as readily now. Would always be ready. “I’m not giving up on you,” she vows. Somehow that only drives the knife deeper.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and the words catch in his throat.

Her lips quirk into a devious smile painfully familiar. “I’m not.”


	5. Misfortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vivienne | Sera | prompt: Misfortune

Bastien’s death was…well. Vivienne supposed she’d been preparing for it, and yet still. Somehow it felt… Vivienne would rather not dwell on how it felt.

Somehow the letters were the worst. The rush of insincere condolences from people she knew didn’t care. She’d reply, of course—a brief, cordial thanks, as hollow as their feigned sympathy. She’d attend every service and greet each masked face with an appropriate show of gratitude, and later in Skyhold she would pen replies to insincere letters. Unfeeling, for now. For as long as she could manage it.

She read the next letter in the pile with a face of practiced stone. A condolence letter from some compte or another. Certainly no friend of theirs. _“Dearest apologies for your recent misfortune,”_ it read, and Vivienne’s fingers curled just a bit too tightly into the paper. She didn’t read the rest. Would rather not. _Misfortune_ —as if her loss were a spot of bad luck. A simple mishap. Bastien’s death was not _unfortunate_ , it was…was…

He did not deserve such a paltry show of pretense. She quelled a frightening surge of hysteria with a measured breath, smoothed out the letter’s crumpled edges, and penned an eloquently polite reply. Because Vivienne was Enchanter to the Imperial Court, _Madame de Fer,_ the jewel of the high court of Orlais—she would not break. Could not.

The next letter gave her pause before she even unfolded it—an already crumpled note, discolored by ink smudges and…was that _mustard?_ Vivienne gently opened it with only the tips of her manicured nails, suspicious frown deepening. Half the words were scrawled out and written-over.

_“Oi, Vivi—heard about your luv. Know we’re not friends or nothing, but losing someone like that is stupid-awful. Even when you think you’re prepared for it, or whatever. Still proper shit. All these phony Orlesian nobs prolly don’t help any either. Anyway. Sorry about all that. You’ve still got friends, or something. Not me, but. Ya know. Other people. This is weird. Just sorry ‘bout it, yea? No one deserves that kind of hurt. Stupid death. So this has been a letter, I guess. The end. ??_

_Sera_

_P.s. I know you prolly feel like utter shit but you still look alright. If it helps.”_

For the first time in far too long, Vivienne genuinely smiled. Yes, she supposed—it rather did help.


	6. Perennial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leliana | Cole | prompt: Flowers

As their Spymaster, very few things managed to take Leliana by surprise. Cole, unfortunately, was too often one of those rare, few things. He caught her off guard one afternoon when he popped around a corner unannounced, but before Leliana could so much as assemble a greeting, she found a fresh bouquet of lilies thrust into her hands.

“You need these,” he explained.

Leliana studied the arrangement with a quirked brow. “Oh. That’s…very sweet?”

“You’re sad,” he supplied. “I…normally put honey in your wine, when you don’t notice, and it makes you happier, but you remember me now. And…Lilith said I shouldn’t ‘sneak.’” His head bowed, nervous, and she lost his face beneath the oversized brim of his hat.

“They’re lovely, Cole,” she assured with a smile. “Thank you. And thank Lavellan as well—these will surely brighten up the rookery. Ah, I know just the spot for them, too…”

But Cole went on, gaze still stuck on the stone floor. “Lilith said you liked flowers. Lilies. Especially the white ones, those are your favorite, although you don’t tell that to many people. They remind you of her—the Warden.  _Evangeline Surana, Champion of Redcliffe, Hero of Ferelden, but alone she was just Evie, with sweet words and eyelids that fluttered when she slept. Mystic, magic, but not because she was a mage. Your hands were both bloody but she could still weave favorite flowers into a crown of softest white, and your songs sang sweeter for days after-_ ” Cole looked up with a start, guilt-stricken. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be in your head. That’s…very rude, isn’t it? Wait, let me try again—not with forgetting, because that's not how we learn things, but…” He shook his head with a fretful sigh. “I’m sorry. This is still new. Being human is harder than I thought.”

He took a deep, steadying breath—a trick Leliana was sure one of his new mentors taught him—and began again. “Hello. These flowers are for you. You don’t always like to think about her, but you still like to think about the flowers. Now you can see them, and think about them often. And you’ll be happier.” He met her eyes with a hopeful smile, and Leliana broke.

She held the bouquet tight with reverent hands, a bloom of softest white. If she closed her eyes, she could almost remember the feel of a white blossom tucked lovingly behind her ear, could almost  _hear-_

“She used to call me Leli,” she confessed, and the traitorous softness of her tone took her by surprise. “She said…I was her favorite flower.”

“ _Because you’re lovely,_ ” Cole finished, an eerie echo of words long dead. “ _And you will always grow back._ ”

Leliana meant to thank him—but by the time she tore her eyes back up, of course he’d disappeared.


	7. Agent Acquired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan | Gen | prompt: Introduction

He was out in the fields when the Templars came.

He was no mage. Hadn’t even taken an official side yet in this awful mess. The world burned around them regardless of who lit the flames; most wanted only to survive it. They hadn’t asked for a full-out _war_. Maker, most of them were farmers, tradesmen, _families_ —many had never had to fight before. Most had never killed. Not a one of them was in any way _prepared_.

But war was graceless, and the world unfair. The first Templar to reach him sent him crumpling with a swift punch to the gut before he could even manage a greeting. He was no mage, but there were no rules anymore, no order to follow. Perhaps they took offense to the particular shape of his ears, or perhaps he was just _there_ , a target by proximity. Just as his loyalties, it didn’t matter. _Why_ never mattered.

They ransacked his house. Stole the few things precious to him then set fire to his field and _laughed_. And when he tried to run, lip still streaming blood from his fall, they went for their swords.

He didn’t want to die for this. Not for _this_ , for pointless mayhem, this stupid… He thought to pray, but was no longer convinced there was anyone still listening. If there ever had been at all.

But then through the smoke emerged a figure—a soldier silhouetted by fire, shoulders hunched under the weight of a great bloodied maul. He couldn’t see their face. Only a golden horned helmet, and a blur of red. They caught his attacker mid-strike with a grappling chain and yanked him backward; knocked him flat with a hard kick to the spine and a furious war cry. The Templars surrounding him turned back to fight, and he scrambled back from the clash just as the faceless stranger ripped a red-blazing clawed hand through a Templar chest plate. The warrior—a dragon sealed within a hulking cage of armor, clad in spiked plates of metal—turned their head to him, and he’d swear he saw a flickering glow behind the helmet’s narrow slits.

His attackers dropped one by one—felled by the horn-helmed knight at first, but then by crackling bursts of magic as reinforcements drew nearer. Two mages and an archer, without uniform or banner; they swept in from the sides, pushing the Templars further and further from him in a hail of arrows and ice. The faceless warrior smashed down a Templar with one great swing of their war hammer; tore through another unfettered before he could even lunge his sword. And suddenly as they appeared, the Templars were gone—reduced to bodies like so many flies in a scattered ring. Without a word, his savior strapped the maul back into its holster. Their voice rang through the helmet’s grate in an echoing boom.

“Dorian, Solas, get a handle on the fires! Sera, I need you on lookout for any survivors.” His rescuer pulled off their horned helmet only to unleash a cascade of silver-white hair. A tattooed elven girl, dwarfed by the weapon on her back, with eyes that burned like dragon fire. She looked down at him, and he felt himself pinned in place. “You alright there, friend?”

His words came slow, haltingly. Dripped from his tongue like cold tree sap. “You…you’re…you _saved_ …”

She thrust a gauntleted hand at him and smiled. “Lilith,” she introduced, and tugged him to his feet by his still-shaking hand. “Lavellan. Or, you know, ‘Inquisitor.’” She pushed a matted tangle of hair back from her forehead and left a streak of red in its place. “You hurt?”

For a moment he could only blink, frozen. “I…no. I don’t think so.”

His knees nearly buckled beneath him when she clapped him on the shoulder. “Good,” she beamed, and her smile crinkled her eyes. “That’s what I like to hear. Some certified assholes, that bunch. I mean, who goes around setting _fires?_ Just _rude_. Oh…” She fussed with the belt at her waist; unknotted a small leather bag and tossed it his way. “Not much for reparations, but hey, it’s something, right?”

The bag clinked when he caught it, far heavier than expected. Coins?

“Maybe steer clear of the east road today,” she went on. “I’ve still got some bandits to take care of out there.”

An elven warrior, Dalish girl, _Inquisition_. “You’re her,” he blurted. “The Herald of Andraste.”

“I’m the herald of something, alright. But just ‘Lilith’ works.”

“It’s true, what they say, then? I mean. They said she— _you_ —were an elf, but…” He found himself babbling, suddenly awestruck. “I didn’t…no one ever-”

“But no one ever said I was this charming, right?” Her laugh was loud as it was genuine. A near-foreign sound. “Well, that or ‘I thought you’d be taller.’ I get that a lot, too.” She twisted her hair back into a loose bun, unknowingly coating it in blood, and pulled her helmet back on. A great horned helm of sharpened steel. The metal grate muffled her voice; turned it gravely and metallic. “If you’re ever looking for a change of scenery, Skyhold’s doors are open to everyone. We can always use a little help and a friendly face.”

One of the others in her group called out to her; an elven man, one of the mages who’d shielded him. He couldn’t even focus on what he was saying. The Inquisitor flashed a quick thumbs up. “That’s my cue. Stay safe out there, friend.” She snapped off a loose salute that he stupidly waved to, and disappeared into the darkening hills with her band in close pursuit. He looked around at the smoldering carnage left in her wake—the only evidence she’d been there at all.

“The Inquisitor,” he marveled under his breath. “Herald of- …Lilith.”

He looked to his house—still in one piece, miraculously—and back to the mountains sitting hazy on the skyline. “Skyhold,” he tested, and the word felt weightless and sweet on his tongue. If mages and Templars started the world on fire, perhaps they needed a dragon to put it out. And perhaps he couldn’t fight. But he could offer a little help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love the [helm of the dragon hunter.](http://lavellanpls.tumblr.com/post/132495779283/i-always-play-with-helmets-on-because-i-think-its) Especially when you mix it with the [revered defender armor,](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Revered_Defender_Armor) jesus _christ._  
>  Also, I am here for Lavellan in Shining Armor. I am just...I am _here_ for that.


	8. Not That Subtle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inquisitor | 5 Sentence Fic | prompt: hair dye.

“It was supposed to be a subtle honey,” she said, and the misery in her eyes paired impeccably with her new orange locks. “The shopkeeper specifically said  _honey_.”

While Dorian tried unsuccessfully to hold back laughter, hand held over his mouth in an unconvincing imitation of deep thought, Vivienne just sadly  _tsked_. “Oh,” she said. “ _Honey_.”


	9. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian | Inquisitor | 5(ish) Sentence Fic | prompt: missing/presumed dead.

He told him he’d be back.

Cassandra was saying something about closure—that their agents would continue to search, but it had been so many months, and perhaps it was time to consider funeral arrangements, a memorial service without a body to bury, some outlet to mourn—but of course that would be  _ridiculous_. He promised to return to him, and he would never lie to Dorian. He’d never-

“ _He’s coming back,_ ” he said, but the intended sharpness was dulled by a treacherous waver in his voice. “He told me he’d be back.”


	10. Smothered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inquisitor | LI | 5 Sentence Fic | prompt: tranquil.

This was wrong.

He reached out to touch her face, lay a steadily quaking hand against her cheek, but this time she didn’t lean into the touch. Didn’t react at all.

There was no fire here anymore. Only ash.


	11. Fallen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inquisitor | 5 Sentence Fic | prompt: blood.

There wasn’t supposed to be this much blood. Not all hers; not like this. Her knees gave out; sent her sinking to the dirt with a numb hand still clasped to her cleaved chest.

“ _It’s fine_ ,” she tried to say, but choked on a wet inhale that left her sputtering too much red as the silhouettes of her companions faded dark. “ _I’m fine_.”


	12. Wilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | 5 Sentence Fic | prompt: flowers.

She used to bring him flowers.

A new vaseful of bright orange-red embrium every morning, placed on the corner of his desk. He tried to tell her the effort was futile—that embrium didn’t last when cut, that they would only die again and again, and the chantry sisters tending the gardens were starting to resent her—but of course she didn’t listen.

“Just enjoy them for now, then,” she said with a too-eager grin, “or at least until they ban me from the garden.”

He didn’t realize how often he glanced up to look at them until the day they stopped arriving.


	13. Haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iron Bull | Inquisitor | 5 Sentence Fic | prompt: nightmare.

He told her he’d fight for her—demons, dragons,  _whole armies_  if she asked it—and he meant it. He would destroy anything that tried to destroy her; would fight every monster. But then came the nightmares—whispers and rattles of plaguing horrors that he recognized too easily and understood too well; dead memories revived in the silence of deepest night. Sometimes she woke up screaming.

He told her he’d fight for her, and he meant it—but late at night, out of reach, he couldn’t keep her from destroying herself.


	14. Penitence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen | Mage Lavellan | 5 Sentence Fic | prompt: templars.

He was a Templar no longer; had renounced, reformed, recognized all the ways he’d once been terribly, terribly  _wrong_  and called himself a different man for it. But then Lavellan happened, and he felt all at once both blessed and punished.

Sometimes he looked at her face—tattooed and smiling—and saw only death. Every death sentence he’d issued, every terrified mage slain by his hand, the horrors he let happen…the haunting faces of smiling girls who could no longer smile.

She told him she loved him, and in the warmth of her eyes Cullen saw the shadow of a lifetime of ghosts.


	15. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | prompt: Pyrrhic victory.

It was all supposed to be over. The fighting, the war, this grand mistake,  _all of it,_  but then Lavellan appeared amidst the chaos, and Solas had not been prepared. For a fleeting moment he almost thought he would be able to fight her—could end it all quickly, painlessly—but then she pulled him into an embrace, and no, he had not been prepared for this.

“ _Ir abelas, ma vhenan._ ”

It was the first time he’d heard her voice in a long, long time.

She held him tight—a blissful echo of fonder times—and ran a sword through them both. The blade pierced through his back and into her chest; pinned them together into a bloody embrace, and Solas thought with a bitter sort of smile that this was the closest she had been to him in years.

“ _Finally got you,_ ” she said, but the blood seeping into her lungs turned it into a wheeze. “ _I’ve got you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHO ASKED ME TO DO THIS


	16. Sunburn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen | Trevelyan | 5 Sentence Fic | prompt: early morning/freckles.

“Too much sun,” she’d once said—tiny dots of damage that darkened with too many hours spent outside. “Not exactly a mark of  _affluence_.”

But in the filtered light of early morning, Cullen found himself tracing lines between her freckles while she slept; drawing connections across her skin with a weightless, reverent touch.

“Too much sun,” she’d once said, and in a way he supposed she was right—he looked at the smattering of dots and saw a hundred tiny suns, like constellations on her skin.

Cullen could think of nothing more affluent than bearing the mark of a sky full of stars.


	17. Parting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | 5 Sentence Fic | prompt: goodbye.

“You didn’t even say goodbye,” she accused.

But that wasn’t true—not wholly. Solas had whispered a litany of broken farewells to her in the night, before their final battle with Corypheus—cowardly murmurs of penitence that fell upon sleeping ears.

“I’m sorry,” he said, but the words were an echo of an echo, their meaning long lost.

He couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye again.


	18. Victorious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | 6 Sentence Fic | prompt: blood.

He’d never considered the blood.

In all his planning, all his preparation and careful, meticulous orchestration of the fall, Solas had never stopped to consider how much blood there would be. How much she would bleed.

“You got what you wanted,” she said, and the blood seeped through his fingers no matter how hard his shaking hands tried to hold her together. She smiled; teeth stained an awful red. “ _You won._ ”


	19. Unattainable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen | Lavellan | 7 Sentence Fic | prompt: pining.

It could never happen.

Lavellan was fire and tenacity and burning, righteous  _fury,_  a destroying angel cast down from some forgotten otherworld to save them all, and Cullen knew from the very start he could never call her his. But there were times they’d speak, alone in his office, when she’d flash a wide and crooked smile and offer sweet assurances that despite everything he thought about himself he could _make it,_  could survive, be  _better,_  and for the briefest of moments he could almost imagine how she’d feel pressed beside him; how her sleeping face would look in early morning light. How complete he could be, at last, if only he could stand at her side.

But she was their Inquisitor, their  _leader,_  and she would never belong to anyone. He could imagine—a futile fantasy of imagined affections that left him breathless and hollow—but he could never have her.

He hoped one day he could finally convince himself of that.


	20. Pointless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sera | Lavellan | 10 Sentence Fic | prompt: Inquisitor struggling to cope with the loss of their arm.

She struggled to heft her great axe to her shoulder one-handed; lifted it from the ground with straining muscles for only a moment before wavering under the weight and letting it drop to the dirt with a heavy  _thud_. It was the first time Sera had ever seen her drop her weapon—the first time she’d ever seen her fail.

“What good am I if I can’t fight?” she demanded, but the fury cracked under a dry sob. “ _What’s the point of me anymore if I can’t even fight?_ ” and Sera wished she knew an answer that would somehow unbreak her.

“ _He took everything,_ ” she seethed, but the words sounded flat, numb, and Sera didn’t know how to make it right this time. Instead she could only lay a hand to her trembling arm—all she had left—and give a well-meaning squeeze she hoped brought comfort.

“I’m still here,” she tried, but the assurance felt empty. Useless. “You’ve still got me.”

She wished that could be enough.


	21. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | 6 Sentence Fic | prompt: "This was a mistake."

Solas thought her death would be the end of it all. All the torment, the doubt and anguish and horrid, guilty  _longing_  that twisted his insides and made the ground drop out from beneath him. Maybe with her gone he could finally move on; could forget all the curves and angles and scars he’d once memorized and _start over_. Maybe with enough time he could even forget her face.

He told her they’d been a mistake—a misguided venture in affection they never should have made—and in the darkness of deepest sleep, the phantom of her memory echoed his words back to him in a voice he would do anything to forget, haunted his dreams and made him awake gasping in an empty bed with the terrible image of her still burned into the backs of his eyelids.

He wished, desperately, he could forget her face.


	22. Linger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | 6 Sentence Fic | prompt: lavender.

He used to make her lavender tea. A last-ditch effort to help her sleep—anything to keep her from pacing anxious trenches in the stone floor in the quiet hours of deepest night—and when she finally did tire she’d curl up beside him, fingers laced tight with his, and he’d taste lavender in every lingering kiss.

She used to ask what she’d do without him.

But that was before—before the betrayal, the bitter, loveless fight before the fall, before he kissed her for the last time and left her to die somewhere far away where he wouldn’t have to watch her wither. It had been years since he’d seen her face. Since he’d felt her alive.

He still couldn’t see lavender without tasting ash in his mouth.


	23. Forget Me Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | **Post-Trespasser.** Lavellan uses Solas’ spies to send him little gifts. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) From [this post.](http://lavellanpls.tumblr.com/post/134371156323/lavellanpls-post-trespasser-headcanon-that)

There were a thousand pressing matters to take care of, now that Solas had the Inquisition on his trail. There were agents to disperse, dissidents to strategically silence, and then there was still the matter of Lavellan, and all the deeply twisted entanglements her vow to find him entailed. He was still buried under a mountain of urgent reports when one his agents knocked hesitantly on the doorframe. One of the newer recruits, he noted—a young elven man, looking oddly shaken. “Sir?” he ventured, and the reluctance in his voice hit an uneasy pang of dread. “Forgive me for interrupting, but I’ve…news, of the Inquisitor.”

Solas forgot about the papers. He looked up, brow furrowed in worry. “What is it?”

“Well,” he began, “um…she, ah…well. It’s an interesting story. See, she wanted to, uh…give you these.” And with frankly impressive speed, Solas found a bunched up ball of silky fabric thrust into his chest. He caught it just as it unfurled—a horribly familiar handful of black silk and lace. It took exactly three seconds for him to recognize what he was holding.

Oh, for-

_Lilith_.

With a tight-lipped frown and a deeply frustrated sigh, he jammed the lacy pair of Lavellan’s undergarments into his pocket and looked disappointedly back to his agent, whose gaze refused to lift from the floor.

“I am so sorry,” the man rushed, “she pulled me aside and told me to hand deliver them to you _in person_ and frankly, sir, I am _terrified_ of her so…those are yours now, and I’m very sorry.”

It took Solas a moment to unclench his jaw long enough to evenly inquire, “So your cover is-”

“Blown wide open, sir,” the agent finished. “I don’t know how she knew, but she _knew,_ and she was…not hesitant.” Shifting uncomfortably on his feet, he now moved his gaze to the ceiling. “And she, uh, had a message, to go with the, ah… _delivery_. But, um…”

He almost didn’t want to ask. Almost. “What was the message?” he relented, exasperated.

“I’d really rather not repeat it, sir.”

“What is it?”

“…she had _very specific_ instructions on how she wanted it relayed, see, and…”

“ _What?_ ”

The agent sucked in a deep breath, stepped forward, and leaned in startlingly close to Solas’ ear to whisper, “ _She wants to know if you still remember how she tastes._ ”

An increasingly red-faced agent stepped back with a look of utter embarrassment, coughing forcibly into his hand. “Also she, ah…sends her regards. Sorry—at this point I’m pretty sure she has spies here, so it’s…probably better if I just, you know…do as she instructed. No offense intended.”

Solas could only stare.

“So I take it I’m fired, then,” his agent said, and Solas just silently nodded.

“Right. That makes sense. Sorry. I’ll just, uh…” He gave a loose salute, still awkwardly avoiding his fearless leader’s direct eye line, before turning on his heels and all but sprinting for the door. He jolted to a stop in the doorway and turned briefly back to add, “Oh, and she also said to ‘feel free to respond through the cook,’ who she said was her, um…‘favorite spy so far.’ So. Again—very sorry.”

He dashed off before Solas could formulate a proper response.

An elven woman approached the door just as the other agent scurried away, a stack of papers in her arms. She flashed a curiously raised eyebrow into the hall. “Everything alright, sir?” Then, concerned: “…you look flushed. Are you well?”

“Perfect,” he stated evenly. “Everything is _perfect_. Pull all of our agents and replace them. Starting with the cook.”

She hugged her stack of papers tighter with widened eyes. “All of them?” she echoed. “That’s…are you sure? That’s a lot of people. And some of them have been there for _years_ -”

“All of them,” he confirmed. “…but send a message through the cook first. Her final assignment.”

She hurriedly rifled through her papers for something blank to write on, nodding for him to continue. “The message, sir?”

“Just…” He took a deep, deep breath, head resting wearily in his hands, and held a long moment before finally continuing, “I do. That’s all. Just…tell her I do.”

The woman looked puzzled, but didn’t question it—simply wrote it down like any other message and hurried off to very possibly terminate half his spy network. Without thinking, his hand went to his pocket, and he remembered with agonizing mortification that he actually recognized this exact set of lacy underthings. A coincidence he could only assume was entirely on purpose.

Fenedhis, _Lilith_ …

This may, he considered hazily, be a bit more difficult than he thought.


	24. Mutual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | >10 Sentence Fic | prompt: "Solas admiring dat booty pre-relationship."

Lavellan’s advisors had given her a new set of clothes to wear around Skyhold—something blessedly  _other_  than her usual blood-stained attire. A modest button-up ensemble in beige; well-fitted, certainly, but nothing dazzling.

Solas had never taken much note of it, until their fearless Inquisitor bent over the war table one afternoon, finger tracing routes across the map, and for a slow and terrible moment his gaze followed the arched trail of her spine all the way down to where newly-fitted pants hugged entirely too tightly to the curve of her butt. She shifted her weight to her other leg; rolled her hip and managed to make the movement look  _obscene_  even as she barked orders for troop movements.

Someone said his name and he looked up with a start; smoothed over the guilty look in his eyes with a mask of cool indifference, and thought— _miraculously_ —she hadn’t noticed. Thought that through the entire meeting, even, until Lavellan bumped her hip against him in passing on her way out the door.

“For future reference,” she informed, voice a low, wicked murmur, and accompanied a wink with a frankly  _startling_  slap to his ass. “Feeling’s mutual.”

She was already halfway down the hall by the time Solas realized his mouth was still open.


	25. Wit & Learning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Dorian | prompt: Harry Potter au // the Ravenclaw common room 
> 
> Prompted by [this post.](http://lavellanpls.tumblr.com/post/137669293143/bless-u-for-putting-dorian-in-ravenclaw-and-not)

Dorian slowed to a reluctant pause before the common room door. Ahead, Solas was already stopped, hand poised for the bronze eagle-head knocker. He caught sight of Dorian and stepped graciously back, offering a nod and the polite invitation, “After you.”

A highly suspicious offer.

Dorian’s eyes just barely narrowed. “I thought you jumped at the chance to answer these?” he tested.

Solas laughed—a close-mouthed hum of amusement. “Yes,” he agreed, “but _I_ don’t need the practice.”

“Oh, aren’t _you_ clever.” He rolled his eyes, teetering closer to exhaustion than insult. “No one likes a know-it-all, you know.” He brushed past to rap out a short tune against the door, staunchly ignoring the smirking elf behind him, and in a small, musical voice the eagle opened and recited:

 _“It makes you weak at the worst of times,_  
_yet keeps you safe, and keeps you fine._  
 _It quickens the heart, or strikes it cold,_  
 _escaped by neither the weak nor bold._  
 _A slayer of all, kings, foes, and frauds,_  
 _devourer of men, creator of gods._

_What am I?”_

“Simple,” Dorian was quick to answer. His smirk tugged wider into a crooked grin. “ _Love_.”

“Sorry,” the door knocker said. “That’s wrong.”

The grin dwindled to a bruised pout. “Excuse _you?_ It most certainly is not.”

“It is,” it insisted. “That’s not the answer.”

“Well I think _that’s_ a matter of debate. Truly, think about it—love fits all parameters, does it not? Ignites the most awful of nerves and makes you weak in the knees, yet is enough to will you to survive; can swell a heart or shatter it, regardless of supposed strength of will; a force from which no man is immune…? _Honestly_. Mankind lives and dies for love; builds whole systems of belief on the sole faith that they’re loved by a higher power. Whatever you think the answer was, mine _clearly_ fits better.”

“A lovely interpretation,” observed the knocker. “Wrong, though.”

Solas, previously content to stand back and silently mock, finally cleared his throat. “The answer is fear,” he said, sounding far too satisfied with himself.

“Also wrong,” the door knocker dutifully informed, “but I appreciate the effort.”

Solas looked _abashed_. “There must be a mistake. I know of much older variations of that riddle; the answer is always fear.”

“Sorry,” said the eagle door knocker. “Listen better.”

Dorian _tsked._ “ _Fear,_ he says… Always such a pessimist. Mine was _far_ cleverer.”

“Yours was wrong.”

“Mine was _poetic._ ”

“It doesn’t matter if it was poetic,” he argued, “it wasn’t the correct answer. It _should_ have been fear, but…” He let the defense die with a terse sigh. “I already know this riddle. The answer is fear. It afflicts all, _consumes;_ spurs people to seek safety in imagined gods.”

“Perhaps it’s some other vague, abstract concept we haven’t mentioned yet. Belligerence? Pomposity? Ennui, maybe?”

“It’s _fear_.”

“Apparently it’s not.”

“Your answer,” Solas pointed out, “was just as wrong as mine.”

“Yes,” he granted. “But it did say mine was lovely.”

They were too caught up defending definitions to notice Varric until he feigned a cough behind them. “Trouble?” he inquired.

Dorian gave a disgusted wave toward the door. “The damn knocker’s broken.”

“I suspect someone’s tampered with it,” Solas agreed. “Perhaps as some sort of _joke_.”

Varric nodded. “Right. You sure you’re not just…you know, answering wrong?”

Solas shot a pointed glare Dorian’s way when he let loose a bark of laughter. “It’s _broken,_ ” he insisted.

“Sure it is,” Varric said. “But maybe I should try anyway.” He knocked briskly, and in a soft and musical voice the door knocker recited:

 _“It makes you weak at the worst of times,_  
_yet keeps you safe, and keeps you fine._  
 _It quickens the heart, or strikes it cold,_  
 _escaped by neither the weak nor bold._  
 _A slayer of all, kings, foes, and frauds,_  
 _devourer of men, creator of gods._

_What am I?”_

And Varric, without a moment’s pause, answered, “Some kind of enchanted door knocker, looks like.”

“Excellent observation,” it replied, and the door swung softy open. Dorian and Solas exchanged mortified glances.

“ _What am I_ ,” Dorian repeated, dismayed. “Not what is _it_.”

“I told you to listen,” said the door knocker.

Varric offered a loose shrug, and tried unsuccessfully not to snicker. “‘Wit beyond measure,’ am I right?” And with a wink and a wave, promptly swept the door shut behind him.

For a moment the two just stared at the newly-locked door, looking far more wounded than they were allowed. Dorian broke the silence first.

“So technically my answer _would_ have been right, though.”


	26. In Memoriam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | prompt: one headcanon about this OTP that breaks your heart // one that mends it

He sees her in everything. Sees the crimson lines of her vallaslin in the silhouettes of tree branches, in the veining of every leaf, in each crack of lightning against the sky. Sees her eyes reflected in every crackling fire and burst of flame, a shimmering afterimage that burns into the backs of his eyelids even as he curses himself and looks away. He can feel her glare as if it sears him. A hatred he deserves.

She’s inscribed her countenance into the very webwork of his veins–a tattooed phantom in splintering lines of red. The crimson glimmer of her smirk gleams back at him in every swipe and spatter of blood. Smug. _Taunting_.

He hears the distant roll of thunder as the storm moves in, the atmosphere heavy with the promise of destruction, and Creators help him, he can _feel_ her–a palpable fury, like the beat of a dragon’s wings. The howl of the wind brings the ghostly echo of battle cries he wishes he could forget.

The world is tainted by her. Haunted.

He comes to hate all of it.

* * *

 

It’s been so long since she’s seen him, but she is just as he remembers. Blood and fire and fury, red-lipped and smirking–the vengeful phantom ever-lurking in his peripheries. A dragon, come to burn him.

“Well look at you,” she says, and her lips break in a crooked grin. “Someone cleans up awfully nice. You know, I would have appreciated that ensemble even more back when I could tear it off.” She laughs–loud and booming, the laugh that used to echo off stone walls and thrum in the deepest hollows of his chest. Spontaneous and genuine and _delighted_. _“My stupid witch cackle,”_ she used to bemoan--ages ago. A lifetime ago.

He’d forgotten what her laugh sounded like.

He’s never loved anything more.


	27. New Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sera | Adaar | prompt: nicknames

Sera called her Lady.

She didn’t know why. It just sort of…fit, didn’t it? Not because she _was_ a Lady—er, well, not technically. Not in _title,_ or anything. Most of the “Ladies” Sera met were prissy noble sods, and Zafirah wasn’t any of those things, but she had a mouth full of big words and eyes like blue crown jewels, and Sera kind of wished there _was_ a grand ol’ mansion somewhere with her name on it. Something with tall ceilings and doorways she wouldn’t smack her horns on, with fountains and funny-shaped shrubbery and all that. It just…fit, right?

Orlais would prolly set itself on fire if some towering Qunari mage moved in down the road. Ohh, she could just _imagine_ it—all those fancy idiots gasping behind their masks when she strolled down the lane with her gold-tipped horns and a dress Sera could drown in. Honestly, that kind of just made it better.

And then Cole snuck up behind her one day while they trudged down the coast and ruined it. "You make words into new words, Sera,” he blithely informed. “ _Lady, my Lady. A title made new for nobler purposes. Fairer, finer, a face worthy of a thousand portraits. She deserves castles_.”

“Shove off with that!” she commanded with a graceless push. “Ugh, now he's ruined it! Creepy's gone and ruined it in my head." She was about to decide a new name altogether—Teetness, Tadwinks, Buckles, maybe?—but then she looked back at Zafirah and the smile on her face sent her thoughts dwindling.

“You think I’m fair?” she asked.

Sera tried to combat her creeping blush with her best noncommittal shrug. “Well, yeah, obviously. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said it, would he?”

Zafirah laughed—that little close-lipped giggle that Sera loved to hear—and suddenly she wasn’t all that mad anymore. She abandoned all arguments with a heated huff. “Alright, Creepy, you’re off the hook this time. But none of that spooky junk, yeah? Right awful, that.”

“It’s a good name,” he assured. “She is fair.”

“Shut it, you!”


	28. Practical Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sera | Adaar | prompt: magic.

It should have bothered her that she was a mage. Sort of did, for a bit. Zafirah was great, but magic was scary, and Sera knew enough to be sure of that fact. But…she wasn’t scared of Zafirah. That’d just be stupid. She was all magic-y and stuff, she guessed, but it wasn’t _scary_ magic. It wasn’t _bad_.

Nothing about Lady was _bad_.

It was weird—Qunari or Vashoth or… _whatever_ didn’t have Circles, didn’t have Templars or really anything, and Sera hadn’t realized how much of a difference that made for magic. How different that made _her_. Sera had met mages before. (She didn’t live under a frigging _rock;_ of course she’d met mages.) And they were okay, mostly, but they were also really, really _careful_ all the time _,_ because someone was always watching them, always making sure they were doing what they were supposed to and not a spark or fizzle more.

No one had ever told Zafirah what not to do. No one told her she couldn’t use magic to warm her tea, hands glowing hot around her teacup; light candles with a snap of her fingertips when she wanted to read late into the night; enchant brooms and stirring spoons and dust rags to assist her when she dedicated days to tidying… She’d lay a glowing hand over scrapes and bruises until they mended, humming some song or other, with no regard for the way people stared. After particularly sticky run-ins with enemies she’d always reach for Sera with hands that faintly glowed and the earnest offer, _“Here, let me help.”_

She refused, of course. At first. (“Thanks but not.” She regarded her reach with a wary stare, lips curled. Magic didn’t help anything. Definitely wouldn’t help _her_.) But then a blast of fire from a Venatori spellbinder scorched her arm and left her screaming, and this time Zafirah didn't bother asking. She latched onto Sera’s arm with icy hands, burn subsiding beneath a wave of magic.

_“It’s alright,”_ she assured. _“I can fix it.”_

And Sera didn’t want to like that, but she was sort of right. It did fix it.

Lady was real good at fixing things.

Sera didn’t mind her healing magic so much, after that. Eventually even let her take a crack at healing up some old hurts that’d never quite fixed themselves. The idea of letting magic touch her was still _creepy,_ yeah, but Zafirah’s magic wasn’t the same thing, exactly, or… _was,_ maybe, but…different. Better. She’d knead her fingers into the knots of Sera’s shoulders with a touch warm and soothing, magic seeping from her fingertips, and that actually…was kind of nice. A bit.

Sometimes she’d hold her hands out, cupped together, and magic up swirly little shapes from the ether. She conjured a wispy heart out of smoke and presented it like a gift, her smile proud and sweet. “For you,” she laughed, and disappeared it in a flash of sparks. No one had ever taught her to be ashamed of her magic.

It should have scared her. Instead, Sera couldn’t stop picturing that smile.

_“Practical magic,”_ she called it. Magic used for simple, helpful things, like cooking and healing and helping. Sera didn’t like it, but then she sort of did, and she still wasn’t sure what the frig to make of that.

She knew enough about magic to know it was _scary,_ but nothing about Lady made her scared. And that was…weird.

One morning she awoke with her hair frizzed out on end, only to discover Zafirah had dreamt herself into a static charge beside her. It should have been scary—magic seeping out in her sleep like that, power fizzing when it shouldn’t be—but her hair looked so bloody ridiculous, and her face so stupid _precious,_ and Sera couldn’t feel anything but adoration and the onset of a fit of giggles.

Zafirah slowly blinked, eyelids still drooping with sleep, and Sera could only laugh. “Hey Storm Cloud, you gonna rain on me next, or you just gonna shock everything?”

“I dreamed I had no pants,” she bemoaned, burying herself beneath their shared blankets. “We were at the Winter Palace, negotiating peace talks, and I had no _pants._ ”

“Oh, now _that’_ s something I wanna see.” She nestled close to her with a hum of laughter, nose pressed up against the curve of her throat. She smelled like sky and clear and old perfume, a tingly mix of flowers and ozone, like her very own rosy storm. She kissed her, and the touch left a faint crackle against her lips. “If you set us on fire one of these days I’m gonna be _right_ pissed.”

“I’m not going to set anyone on fire,” she said. “That would be a _terrible_ mess.”

“Unless you forget your pants at Halamshiral.”

“Then I’m setting all of Orlais on fire. Starting with me.”

Sera only laughed. For once the thought of magic stirred no fear. “Hey, do the thing,” she prompted, arms pulling tight around her. “The warm thing.”

With a sleepy hum of approval, she took a breath and warmed her skin with a surge of magic. Sera was all too happy to fall back asleep with her cheek resting warm on her shoulder.


	29. Hearsay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas | Lavellan | Gossiping Skyhold Staff | prompt: _"Early Solavellan trying to keep their relationship a secret (politics, privacy, discretion, whatever) but Skyhold's staff knows she's got *someone* because, let's be honest, the laundresses would totally be the first to know when she'd had a man in her bed. And because they're all terrible gossips, they're trying to spy and desperate to figure out who it is."_

“You sure?”

“I’m telling you,” she insisted. “I know evidence of a man when I see it. There was a _man_ in her _bed_ –I washed the sheets myself.”

Charter had only come up to the rookery to deliver a report to Sister Nightingale—some boring daily update on Skyhold activity. She found instead an empty table and two familiar faces huddled near, exchanging words in hushed whispers. A maid, Silvia, and one of Cullen’s new recruits—a particularly eager young man by the name of Jim. She wasn’t proud of how quickly she abandoned her quest when Silvia waved her over, excited, and whispered, “Charter! You’ve _got_ to hear what I just found!” She was even less proud of the bubbling excitement with which she took in the news.

“The Inquisitor has had _company_ ,” Silvia went on. “And of the more intimate variety, might I add.”

Now _this_ was more interesting than reports on new guard rotations. She abandoned her papers atop Leliana’s table, attention snagged. “You’re kidding. Who?”

 “Well he didn’t spell his name out, did he? Just _someone_.”

“Bet it’s the Commander,” Jim piped in. “All those little chess games and lingering, sidelong looks… Maker, don’t even get me started on the _comments_. Do you know she once asked him if he was _celibate?_ Just came right out and asked! Smack in the middle of the training yard! We all heard it.”

They peered over the railing with care, voices dropped low. Below, they could just make out the Inquisitor’s shape bent over the research table, discussing something with Helisma. She appeared to be emptying her pockets of teeth. “I _think_ this one’s from a wyvern.” Her voice floated up to the rookery. “But I’m not positive where this molar came from.”

Silvia gave a skeptical _hmph_. “You’re the spy, Charter—has there been any talk of a romantic interest?”

“Not that I’ve heard. Definitely nothing _official_. I’m sure Sister Nightingale knows, though. She knows everything.”

“She’s your boss–can’t you just _ask_ her?”

“I don’t think you quite understand how this ‘agent’ thing works. I report stuff to her; not the other way around.”

“Well you’re a spy, aren’t you?” Jim pressed. “What do your elf eyes see?”

“Alright, firstly, that’s offensive. Second, I haven’t _seen_ anything. Heard a few things, maybe. But that’s a big maybe.”

“Right.” Jim nodded. “On account of the ears.”

“Again. Offensive.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“What about that Tevinter friend of hers?” Silvia suggested. “The magister? Awfully chummy, those two. And he’s _awfully_ handsome. Could be him, right?”

Charter kept her face impassive with no small effort. “You know,” she deadpanned, “somehow I just don’t think so.”

“Oh, come on—they’re always sneaking off together come sundown. You’ve got to wonder what it is they get up to.”

“Drink, mostly,” Charter plainly informed. “And argue. Often at the same time.”

“Well are they particularly _sexy_ arguments?”

“Last night they talked about wine for a solid hour, then he said Tevinter made the best red and she said, ‘You shut your filthy liar mouth you blaspheming son of a fuck.’ They spent the next hour arguing. Not even about _wine;_ at some point it turned into an argument on appropriate occasions for wearing white.”

“What was the verdict on that?”

“That the only reason to ever wear white is to show your enemies how much of their blood you wear.”

“That could be a sexy argument. Maybe. It could still be him.”

“It wasn’t,” she stated. “It’s not. Trust me.”

“It’s got to be the Commander,” Jim jumped in to add. “Have you _seen_ the way they flirt? It’s positively _shameless_. ‘We should spend more _time_ together, Cullen; I do so _enjoy_ your company, Cullen.’ He gets all stutter-y over it. I’m telling you, the man is clearly smitten.”

“Jim, you say that about everything.”

“I do not.”

“You sort of do,” Silvia agreed. “What about that Qunari fellow, though? The Iron Bull? He’s got quite a reputation for…things.”

“And they do spend an awful lot of time in that tavern together…”

“It’s not,” Charter said. “I asked him.”

“You _asked?_ ”

“Well…yeah?” At their nonplussed expressions she could only roll her eyes. “We play cards on Tuesdays. Grim buys the drinks. Skinner cheats. None of them are having a go with the Inquisitor; I can tell you that much.”

“Well he could have lied, couldn’t he? Probably sworn to secrecy, and whatnot.”

Now _that_ actually made her laugh. “I’m a _spy,_ you tit—I don’t go around spreading unverified information. Krem says he really hasn’t, and the man was _far_ too drunk to lie. Trust me.”

“I find that a bit hard to believe. Wasn’t more than a few days ago I overheard the Inquisitor in the tavern talking to him about…things. _Devices,_ and the sort.”

“ _Ooh Mr. Iron Bull,_ ” Silvia cooed, an exaggerated echo of the Inquisitor’s voice. “ _Bet I can do things your blade can’t_.”

Charter remained unconvinced. “Yeah, that’s just…how they talk. Think it’s a cultural thing, or something. Either way—I think you can safely count the Iron Bull out. Someone would’ve heard about it by now anyway. Or just _heard_ it. He’s not exactly subtle.”

“Fine, then. What about the Warden? Blackwall, was it? She seems pretty keen on him. Takes him all over Thedas with her looking for old Warden stuff. Who goes to that much trouble for a _buddy?_ Plus I’m a good 70% certain she made some comment about a _‘mustache ride,’_ which sounds…very suggestive.”

“Could be,” she said, sounding wholly unconvinced. “Honestly I think the Inquisitor just does that, though.”

“My money’s still on the Commander,” Jim insisted. “I’d bet good coin those two are sneaking off together on the sly. You ask me, she’d be mad not to.”

“Honestly, Jim, your obsession with the man is getting out of hand. Have some pride.”

“It’s not an obsession,” he weakly defended. “He’s just…I’m around him a lot. It’s not an obsession.”

Silvia ignored him. A feat that was steadily becoming more difficult. “Maybe Varric?” she tried. “I mean, he did give her a nickname. That’s something lovers do, isn’t it?”

“You think the leader of the Inquisition is bedding _Varric Tethras?_ Really?”

“I don’t know who she’s bedding,” she defended. “That’s why it was a question. I’m just saying—it wouldn’t be particularly unbelievable.” She touched a hand to her chest in thought, lips screwed tight into an anxious pout. “…you don’t think he only likes dwarves, does he? I mean…he’s just got such a way with _words_ …” The rosy flush across her cheeks traveled all the way up to her ears. “The man’s a poet, he is.”

“Not sure ‘Killer’ counts as a lover’s pet name, but I suppose it makes more sense than Dorian.”

“I’m still not convinced there isn’t something going on between them.”

“Unless the Inquisitor is hiding one _very_ big secret in those leather pants of hers, I seriously doubt it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Never mind,” she sighed. “I’ll explain it to you later.”

Jim gave a tired groan. “Look, she’s the Inquisitor,” he said. “The Herald of Andraste, Thedas’ blessed savior, what have you. She can’t just go around snogging gents left and right. She’s got to be professional. It’s politics. Whatever it is she does in her personal life is going to be kept locked up tight. She’s got a whole team of advisors to make sure of that. You ask me, we may _never_ know where her true affections lie.”

Below, Lilith strolled across the rotunda with a stack of books in hand. Solas, bent over his desk, was too engrossed in whatever text he was translating to glance up. Without even slowing, she landed a firm, open-palmed _slap_ to his ass that echoed all the way up to the rookery. Charter had never seen the man jump so fast in her entire residence.

He murmured something quick too hushed for them to hear, a heated string of Elven, and Lavellan’s laughter carried through the whole tower. _“Later,”_ she vowed, smile wide with wicked promise. She swept off to the ramparts with a wink, leaving one _very_ flustered elven apostate staring after her with a steadily reddening face.

Charter broke the silence first. “Right,” she said. “I think you owe me some coin, Jim.”

 

 


	30. Lucid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan/Solas | prompt: “Dreams”  
> [for anon.](http://lavellanpls.tumblr.com/post/150082653293/three-prompts-1-solas-regrets-telling-lavellan)

  **i.**

He knows he shouldn’t.

It’s indulgent, and foolish, and nothing good will come of it. There is nothing to gain from this but pain, and Solas knows this. Lavellan is not his; can never be. But sometimes he watches her while she dreams.

He only ever watches.

There are times she seems to notice him. Stops, and reaches out. They never speak. Never touch. He can never again be close enough to touch. Solas knows this, and yet…

He cannot help but watch.

It started as concern, at first–he could never have her but he did not wish her pain, and so he slipped unnoticed through the shifting landscape of the Fade to see her while she dreamed. Just…to see her. If only once more.

The second time he visited her was for more selfish reasons. He could never have her but to see her, even in dreams, brought a comfort he suspected he would never find again. If he let himself drift he could almost forget this wasn’t real. Could almost…

It is a comfort, and it kills him, and he cannot stop.

 

**ii.**

He finds her tonight at the edge of a black and endless ocean. This dream is dark–a nightmare, full of water. He sees Lilith’s shape against a backdrop of still black, her back turned, and for a fleeting moment considers waking her. She should not be here. Something is _wrong_ here.

Solas watches as the waters rise around her; swell toward her in silent waves until water laps at her ankles and soon her knees, her hips, her waist. She stands motionless as it rushes past her chest, up over her shoulders.

He watches the water swallow her whole, and wants to scream. A shock of silvery hair shimmers briefly on the surface before it, too, is enveloped in blackness. She sinks–an anchor lost–and Solas feels his own lungs failing.

He calls for her. A foolish thing to do.

She does not answer.

When he gasps awake it feels as though he cannot breath.

 

**iii.**

He visits her again. It’s selfish and indulgent and will lead nowhere good, but he does it anyway, and regrets.

Tonight she is with a man. A faceless entity he cannot decipher; some dream-conjured image. They murmur things sweet and hushed, heads bowed close, and Solas watches as they kiss. His hands fall to her waist, venture lower, and he hears the echo of a familiar, delighted gasp as her blouse is pulled up and past her chest-

Solas leaves before he can see more, and awakes tense with an awful, shameful fury.

 

**iv.**

He finds her dancing tonight. He cannot tell if this place is dream or memory–the edges of the Fade are hazy here, the details ill-defined. He cannot determine the source unless he ventures closer, further in, and of course he can’t do that. He is only here to watch.

He must only ever watch.

She dances, but the shapes of too many spectators loom. She dances and they _watch._ A shadowed, faceless crowd, voices running together into a low and steady hum. Her blouse drops from her shoulders, slides down her arms and falls in a pool at her feet, and a whistle cuts through the crowd. She works her skirt down with an obscene swivel of hips, twirls, and sheds the last of her clothing to a chorus of raucous cheers. She dances, and Solas watches while her hands slide the paths he once touched. Watches while a faceless crowd looms.

He wishes he could disappear them. He wishes he could touch her. He wishes he could dash this terrible dream into oblivion.

Solas awakes, and yearns, and hates.

 

**v.**

Tonight she is alone. Humming to herself amid a wilted field of embrium, some old Dalish lullaby he’s only half familiar with. She runs her hand along the drooping tops of dead flowers, and in the distance Solas hears the howl of wolves. He can see them across the hazy expanse–dots of black that split with intent to surround. They close in, circling, and Lilith hums as she strolls ever forward.

Solas knows this is a dream, yet cannot calm his racing heart. He thinks to call to her–stop her, _help_ –but he knows he cannot. He tears himself away before he can do something terrible, and awakes with a painful ache in his chest.

He cannot rid his mind of the echo of howling wolves.

 

**vi.**

Lilith knows he watches. Always knows. Solas can leave as often as he wants, can run again and again, but he is still hers. Will always be hers.

Tonight she imagines a gentle breeze, and lets the memory of wind flutter the sheer fabric of her shift. It’s sunset here. The hills glow golden behind her, and in the distance she feels the gaze of familiar, watchful eyes.

Crimson fabric clings to her skin; flows and shapes itself to the contours of her naked body like a shimmering second skin. She lets the loose straps of her dress fall from her shoulders; lets it trail behind her in a gust of phantom wind. She breathes, eyes slipped shut. Her dress falls away and she laughs.

 _Eat your heart out,_ she silently taunts. She cannot quell a grin. _Dread Wolf._

She hopes he remembers this when he wakes.


	31. A Terrible End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan/Solas | prompt: "Knowing"  
> [for anon.](http://lavellanpls.tumblr.com/post/150082653293/three-prompts-1-solas-regrets-telling-lavellan)

He meant to end it that night.

Better, he meant to end it many nights ago—before the dream, before the kiss, before the endless entanglements that swept him up in dreams of some different future. But _tonight_ … He planned to tell her when they were alone, safely hidden from prying eyes. Somewhere quiet and familiar. They did not need an audience for this. Solas wished it didn’t need to happen at all.

He wished for far, far too many things.

When evening fell he took Lilith up to her chambers, silent, and followed with a heavy heart as she tugged him with her to the balcony.

He loved her. Truly. Perhaps more than he’d loved anyone, which was at once both beautiful and frightening. But this was not fair, and she deserved better. If he ever truly loved Lavellan he would end this now, before…something worse happened. They’d already gone farther than he’d ever intended—a dangerous foray into emotions he never wanted—and yet it could still become so much worse. Lilith did not deserve worse.

Lilith did not deserve any of this.

He’d been so caught up in internal rehearsals of what he’d say that he did not notice something was wrong. Didn’t notice the grim set of Lilith’s jaw; the curious absence of a smile.

“We should talk,” she said.

That was supposed to be his line.

There were no clever grins, no warm, teasing touches. She pulled him by the hand out to the balcony and promptly separated. She stood too far away; shoulders pressed back into too rigid of a line. “I love you,” she said, but the confession sounded formal. Cold. “And I’m going to die.”

That was…not his line.

That wasn’t supposed to be anyone’s line.

She went on, but her voice was wrong. A grim message delivered in a tone as if noting the weather. “Not _now,_ probably, but…eventually. Sooner than most. And…I think you should know that.”

This was not part of any of his rehearsals. For a second Solas felt his brain falter. “What?”

“I don’t want to go into this dishonestly,” she pressed. “I don’t want plans to be made when I know I can’t honor them. Does that make sense?”

Whatever jumbled script he’d compiled fell away, plans scattering in a flash of panic. This was- That couldn’t- He had no formulated response ready for that. “You think you’ll die?” was all he could seem to manage.

Lavellan didn’t share his panic. “Everything dies,” she said. “I’ll just die sooner.”

Solas felt his heart fall with a cold and sinking horror. “You don’t expect to survive Corypheus,” he translated, “do you?”

“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. It’s not really about that. Or is, I guess, but it’s…more.”

“Lilith?”

It took too long for her to respond. Not because she couldn’t—Solas could see the words pressing at the back of her lips, already formed and practiced. She held back as if considering the easiest way to let him down.

“I’m not invincible,” she finally answered. “I know my limits, and I know myself. People like me aren’t built to be permanent. _I_ can’t be permanent. I fully believe I’ll break Corypheus’ face, but that isn’t the point. I know I’ll win. But _winning_ doesn’t always mean surviving. _This,_ us, me—it’s all… I’m temporary.” She looked up at him with such sympathy, such _pity_ , as if somehow she was the one letting him down. As if she was the one to doom them.

“I need you to understand,” she explained. “If this doesn’t kill me—Templars, demons, _Corypheus_ —something else will. There’ll be another big bad out there to fight and I will always fight it. And one day I’ll lose. One day it’ll be an explosion I don’t survive, a spell I can’t come back from. One day I’m going to fall and I won’t get back up. I just…” She steadied herself with a deep inhale. An even breath in, out. “Whatever happens. Wherever I end up. It won’t be a happy ending. It won’t be _fair._ And you should…know that.”

Yes. Solas knew too much about unfairness. “Are you saying you want to end this, then?”

“No, _no,_ I don’t want-” Another breath in, in, in; a clipped exhale out. “I like this. I like _you._ But if that’s not something you want, if that’s too much, or… I understand if it’s not worth it. It’s not fair, and it’s selfish to ask of someone. I get that.”

_Selfish._ To hear it used to describe Lilith was…awful. _Wrong._ “You are not selfish,” he assured, and couldn’t curb the reflex to reach for her. He took her hand, squeezed, but saw nothing reflected in her eyes. Just cold. Death, and cold.

“You’ll have to bury me,” she said, and her voice never wavered. Never broke. “You know that, right?”

It would have been better if she cried. Solas had no desire to see her in pain but somehow the numbness was worse—a resigned sort of calm, a steely, unnatural thing. She stared ahead into death with whole and unwavering acceptance, and that was…the most awful thing of all.

She would die, and she was ready.

She was right, of course. She knew she was right, and Solas knew, too. Lilith Lavellan would not end happily. It would be a terrible end, and she would not deserve it. But he would never wish for her to know that. _Please_ —if he could keep her from knowing anything, even one thing…let her be blind to this.

Solas lied, because he could do nothing else. Held her close with arms wrapped tight, and spilled empty assurances. “You cannot know that’s true,” he lied. “You are not temporary. You are not fated for destruction. Nothing about you makes you _doomed._ And as for Corypheus…” For once, graciously, he did not have to lie. “If anyone could survive, if anyone could defeat him—I believe you could.”

Please, let her at least know that.

“This will not be your end,” he assured, and wished, desperately, that he could promise that. He wished for so many things.

But when she pulled back she looked…frustrated. Almost disappointed. “This isn’t a grand romantic gesture,” she argued. “I’m not saying this for the sake of _drama._ I need you to understand this, the full gravity of this, because it _will_ happen. And I can’t- I need us to be on the same page.” She anchored a hand to his shoulder and looked him square in the eyes with a stare that he swore would someday set the world ablaze. “I’m going to die,” she stated. “And you know that.”

This was not fair. Solas knew. But neither of them needed to be reminded of it tonight.

“…yes,” he finally agreed. He pulled her into an embrace and this time she allowed him. None of this was fair, and she was going to die. Yes. He understood. His arms pulled reflexively tighter. “But it does not have to be alone.”

He wished, above all else, that that would not prove a lie, too.


	32. Better Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan + Dorian | prompt: "Things you wish you could have said"

They’d spoken of so many things.

Magic, magisters, his _mother_ —Lavellan was full of questions and Dorian did so enjoy having someone actually show interest in what he had to say. The shameless flirtations weren’t terrible, either. Nothing would come of it, obviously, but. It was still rather fun. Lilith treated flirting like a sport, and Dorian was all too happy to play that game. (Also, she frequently referred to him as “babe,” and that was _entirely_ too much fun.)

Debates were veritable events, discussions mired in playful banter. They spoke of many things. Dorian always enjoyed it.

They spoke of Tevinter.

She asked about slavery, and Dorian didn’t think to be wary. Lilith asked about many things.

“Did you have slaves?” she asked.

“Not personally,” he said. “But my family does, and treats them well. Honestly, I never thought much about it until I came South. Back home, it’s...how it is? Slaves are everywhere. You don’t question it. I’m not even certain many slaves do.”

She was supposed to reply with something glib. Some teasing flirtation, a playfully antagonistic remark. She was supposed to make some kind of joke. She didn’t.

The crooked line of her smile turned sharp. “How can you not question it?”

He frowned at the steely curtness of her voice. “In the South you have alienages, slums, both human and elven. The desperate have no way out. Back home, a poor man can sell himself. As a slave, he could have a position of respect, comfort, and could even support a family. Some slaves are treated poorly, it’s true. But do you honestly think inescapable poverty is better?”

He thought she would argue. She didn’t.

She backhanded him with a ringing _slap_ across the face. Her eyes burned; the branching lines of her tattoos bunched in a furious scowl.

“ _How dare you_ ,” she seethed. The muscles of her arms tensed, fingers curling into fists. “ _People,_ ” she hissed, “are not things to be _sold_.”

For a horrid flash of an instant Dorian felt the burn of indignation rise like bile in his throat. Words spit out with the bite of a viper. “How _dare_ I?” he scoffed, and couldn’t dull a venomous edge. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a slave, true. I never thought about it until I saw how different it was here. But I suspect _you_ don’t know, either, nor should you believe that every tale of Tevinter excess is the norm.”

He thought she’d slap him again.

She didn’t.

She stared him hard in the eye, fury-frozen and unblinking; tossed back the bunched muscles of her shoulders and stood at full height. “I like you, Dorian,” she said. “But I need to explain something to you.”

This was never part of the game. This was not fun.

He tried not to look shaken. “Abuse heaped upon those without power,” he shot back, “isn’t limited to Tevinter, my friend.”

Lavellan bit out the crisp command, “ _Hold your tongue,”_ and Dorian’s jaw sealed shut. “You need to gain some perspective, son, and you need to do it quick.” When she stepped forward Dorian had to fight the urge to move back. “You’re going to ask me how I know? How I’m qualified to _argue?”_ Her voice rings clear, heavy with a millennia worth of rage. “My very heritage is saturated with the blood of those you would call ‘better off.’ These are my people. My history. _My death_. Don’t you _dare_ deign to tell me how my suffering is ‘better.’”

“I-”

Oh.

_Oh_.

“Have you lost anyone?” she demanded. “Family? Friends?”

“I…suppose, but-”

“ _This is not loss,_ ” she hissed. “ _This is more than loss._ To be stripped of personhood is a conscious state of death, and you know nothing of death.” Her fingers curled into his robes like claws in flesh. “ _You know nothing of my deaths._ ”

He wished she would have slapped him again. When she released her hold on his collar it felt like being pried from a lion’s jaws.

“I like you,” she repeated, “but you will not bring that shit into my Inquisition. You either care about people or you don’t. There is no grey. Not here. Not with me.”

Lilith couldn’t have stood more than two inches above five feet tall. Somehow she still loomed over him like a rolling storm.

“Poverty is not death,” she stated. “A poor man is still his own man. A slave is a _thing_ , and how dare you equate them. _People are people._ We are not _things_. We will never again be _things. Never._ Do you understand?”

“…yes.”

“No pity for abusers. No mercy for oppressors. _And no tolerance for masters_.” The frigid stillness of her eyes stung like ice on bare skin. “I will never be a _thing._ I will never be _bought._ Do you understand?”

“…I’m sorry.” He rarely said it and meant it so profoundly. Today was…more than rare. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

He thought to argue— _this is part of my society, part of my culture, this is a societal norm, I’ve never been made to question it_ —but he stayed silent. It felt blasphemous not to.

“You’re a smart man,” she said. “A _clever_ man. And if you’re conscious enough to criticize Tevinter, then you’re more than capable of knowing that a person’s life is not a commodity to be owned. _People are not owned._ And there is no excuse to absolve you of fault. You’re part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. Inaction— _to not think—_ does not make you less guilty.”

He wished she’d just slap him again.

“This conversation isn’t happening again. There are no baby steps. This isn’t a process. It’s not _food for thought_. This is inalienable truth, and there is no grey. Slavery is _wrong_. You are _wrong_. This is the end of the world as we know it, and I will not face it with someone who does not _think_.” Her eyes were ice, were fire, were steel. Dorian’s bones felt full of dust. “Do you understand?”

“I do,” he said, and his voice came out subdued this time. He no longer felt like being contrary. “I…I’m sorry.”

“Then learn,” she said. “ _Be better_.”

“Yes. I… I never meant it like that. I’m sorry.”

She laid a hand on his shoulder, and her fingers curled just a touch too tightly into the curve of his bones. “ _Learn_ ,” she repeated. “ _Think_.” When she finally released him and stepped back it felt like watching a great beast sink back into the sea. Dorian felt his resolve splinter and crack like a ship lost to a storm.

The burn of Lavellan’s eyes ebbed back to placid glass, calm returning in a flash. “We still on for drinks tonight?”

“Drinks,” he shakenly echoed. “Ah. Yes.”

“Good.” She snapped off a loose mock salute and turned to leave, divine fury seemingly contained. The rigid lines of her muscles softened, the wrathful goddess melting back into easy smiles and clear eyes. “Later, babe.”

Dorian still felt glass in his bones.


End file.
